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It’s been years since I tackled Shakespeare. This is my first visit to “King Lear.” It’s a truism that the Bard is best experienced in the theatre, and Lear is considered one of his most demanding plays. Indeed, I found it rough going. The first problem of course is the Elizabethan English. But a secondary problem is that a modern reader needs plot assistance. My Signet version offered no convenient scene summaries, unlike the Folger version of “Hamlet” I’m now reading. So there was much groping in the dark.
Some critics say Lear is unpopular with audiences due to its shocking violence (the blinding of Gloucester and the murder of Cordelia)…but really, after the Holocaust, atom bomb, Sandy Hook, and our regular diet of evening news stories? Maybe these critics are referring to audiences of Shakespeare’s time. Other critics make a big to-do over the existence of a side plot (the Cain-and-Abel story of Edmund and Edgar), but aren’t dual plotlines a literary norm these days?
The violence and side plot bothered me not at all. The antiquated, metaphorical English, yes. Guess I need to see this one in the theatre.
Some critics say Lear is unpopular with audiences due to its shocking violence (the blinding of Gloucester and the murder of Cordelia)…but really, after the Holocaust, atom bomb, Sandy Hook, and our regular diet of evening news stories? Maybe these critics are referring to audiences of Shakespeare’s time. Other critics make a big to-do over the existence of a side plot (the Cain-and-Abel story of Edmund and Edgar), but aren’t dual plotlines a literary norm these days?
The violence and side plot bothered me not at all. The antiquated, metaphorical English, yes. Guess I need to see this one in the theatre.